This winter term, the Palaeopitus Senior Society announced a partnership with the Office of Visa and Immigration Services to support undergraduate students applying for B-2 tourist visas for international family members to attend Commencement.
Palaeopitus has sent periodic campus-wide emails inviting students of all class years to complete an anonymous survey about Commencement visa needs. According to the emails, responses will help Palaeopitus customize resources and advocate for the College to provide more tourist visa application support.
According to OVIS director Susan Ellison, a B-2 visa permits temporary entry to the United States for “pleasure,” characterized as any legitimate activities of a recreational nature. In order for an application to be approved, an applicant must establish that they have the funds to support themselves during the temporary stay and that they intend to return to their residence abroad at the conclusion of their stay, Ellison added.
Palaeopitus member Kiosha Fowlkes ’25 said she suggested the initiative in the fall and has been spearheading the project.
“A lot of times I heard [other students say] ‘people from my country [say] they’re not able to access resources here at Dartmouth to support them,’” Fowlkes said. “So when I applied [for Palaeopitus], I [decided] this is one of the initiatives I’d like to bring to the board and have us work on.”
Fowlkes said she learned more about B-2 visas through her immigration internship at Northeast New Jersey Legal Services — which provides free legal assistance to low-income residents of New Jersey. She then researched the application process and outlined resources that Dartmouth can offer to support international students, such as additional government resources linked on the OVIS website.
Ellison wrote that Palaeopitus reached out to OVIS requesting that it add more information about the classification and application process of B-2 visas on its website.
“The group shared additional information and references to government resources that they thought would be helpful, and we incorporated many of their suggestions into additional content created by OVIS staff which now appears on the website,” Ellison wrote.
Fowlkes said the survey received 64 responses and that Palaeopitus is currently processing the responses to address student needs. Palaeopitus made the survey anonymous to allow students to provide as much information as possible about their concerns, she added.
“We wanted to know what concerns [students] may have for their families coming over,” Fowlkes said. “So that was a component of the survey — gathering all their concerns and also gathering how well they feel supported by Dartmouth right now.”
According to Fowlkes, the base price for a B-2 visa application is $185, with additional fees depending on the applicant’s home country. Ellison wrote that U.S. embassies and consulates follow guidance from the U.S. Department of State to review and adjudicate B-2 visa applications. Fowlkes said the survey included a question on whether the application fee would be a financial burden to the student, and added that many respondents said they would be open to receiving “financial support.”
“We talked to the financial aid office, and they weren’t super open to the idea of funding applications for that, or having sort of financial involvement and supporting senior families to come here,” Fowlkes said.
Because of this, Fowlkes said she has spoken to members of the Coalition for Immigration Reform and Equality at Dartmouth, a student group advocating for undocumented students about their Immigrant Senior Support Fund sourced via donations. The $5,000 fund aims to financially assist domestic travel for families of first and second-generation immigrant students for Commencement.
According to Fowlkes, a “majority” of survey responses said their families’ B-2 applications were still in progress.
“A lot of them indicated that they would still need support in whatever stage they are right now in their application process,” Fowlkes said. “So that also indicates that there’s a need.”
Ellison said that OVIS has a family invitation letter template for students to send to their respective embassies. However, according to Fowlkes and an anonymous international student, other colleges officially sign these letters and give them to the students to submit with their applications.
“Harvard even provides family invitation letters for [students] — like, they will have [university] employees sign off on it [for] the U.S. embassies,” Fowlkes said.
The anonymous student said they attempted to have OVIS write a letter confirming they are graduating this spring. The letter would have been included in the student’s mother’s B-2 visa application, which was ultimately rejected three weeks into the process.
“[OVIS] said they don’t give out letters nowadays, which I don’t know if that had [boosted] my chances or not, because, at least for some of my friends from other schools, they were able to get their schools to [send out the letters],” the anonymous student said.
According to Ellison, the U.S. Department of State has “consistently” provided written guidance that these letters do not factor into the decision to approve or deny a B-2 visa application.
“We understand that the visa process can be complex and stressful for international students and their families,” Ellison wrote. “While we cannot influence B-2 visa application decisions, we are committed to supporting our international students.”
The anonymous student said they followed the OVIS letter guide.
“I [wish] the school could support the international student community better because I feel … this would have been the one chance my parents perhaps could have supported me in this journey,” the student said. “That would have been nice, but it sucks. It’s not gonna happen.”
According to the First Generation Office director Jay Davis, the King Scholars Program — which provides four-year scholarships to low-income international students interested in addressing social issues in their home countries — funds two family members’ graduation-related travel expenses for each scholar.
“[Commencement] is an amazing opportunity to bring their families,” Davis said. “But if the visa isn’t approved — and we had several who were not approved last year — just they didn’t [get approved or] they didn’t get their meeting in time.”
Correction Appended (Feb. 25, 1:16 p.m.): A previous version of this article stated that other colleges send letters of invitation to embassies. Other colleges sign these letters but do not send them to embassies themselves, according to the Harvard International Office. The article has been corrected. The article has also updated a quote by Fowlkes to clarify that she was referring to the experiences of international students, not her own.
